Paint me a picture
by Paralelsky
Summary: "What do you do with a weapon who's become obsolete?" asked Harry, almost conversationally. "You disassemble it, or stow it securely away." answered Tony, voice devoid of any inflection. Sequel to 'Black is the colour' - or how Tony and Harry met. Fem!Harry
1. Is that coffee?

**AN: **Here it is the first chapter of the sequel you were all waiting for.:D Enjoy!

**Pairing: hopefully Tony/Harry **(still in the works, that one ;))

**Rating: T;**

******Beta: **the still awesome **llLethell - thank you dearest!**

**Disclaimer: **Is this really necessary? It's fanfiction people, that means: **Me NOT own**...******-_-'**

**Warning: **a bit of swearing, crude humour, mention of violence, fem!Harry and Tony Stark - because his presence in any fiction should come with a warning. ^_~

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**Chapter 1**

"Is that coffee?" Tony asked as he ambled into the kitchen. Bleary eyed and with his hair defying gravity - a fashion which was kind of cute. Harry hid a smile by taking a sip from her own cup.

"Yes. Black as your soul and twice as sweet," she answered just as he poured himself a cup.

"My type, then." He grinned, and downed half of it.

It was still early morning, the sun barely up in the skies, and for once the Tower was quiet. Tony wanted to enjoy the moment, but his mind was never one to sit still. And speaking about that…

"Your cat was in my room last night. Again," he said matter-of-factly.

Harry cocked an eyebrow mockingly. "And what do you expect me to do about that? She goes wherever she pleases. Cats do that, you know."

"Hmm." He let the matter drop, the subject not important enough to detract him from the sacred task of worshiping the drink of the gods, a.k.a. coffee.

"Morning," called Steve, stepping bright-eyed into the kitchen and heading to the fridge. Tony eyed him distrustfully, with the glare late-night partiers reserve for those bright morning people that live only to mock them. Tony scowl deepened even further when he saw Captain America pour himself a glass of milk and down the whole thing in three large gulps.

"Heathen," he stage whispered and then pretended to ignore the puzzled looks Steve send his way or the way Harry was smiling fondly.

Just then there was a shuffle and a bang, and the automatic doors opened to let a half-asleep doctor Banner into the kitchen as well. Glasses askew, and clothes wrinkled as if he'd slept on them, Bruce paid the other people in the room no mind as he made a beeline for the freshly brewed coffee. Rather than taking a cup he looked ready to drink the whole pot, just barely restraining himself as a semblance of civility let itself known. He never resembled his alter-ego more than in that moment as he stood indecisive with the half-full pot in one hand, and an empty cup in another, as if he wasn't sure as what to do with them, and Tony was glad he was awake enough to appreciate the show.

And judging by the amused glances and the quiet snickering he could detect from his companions, they were equally entertained.

Finally coming to a difficult decision, Bruce had the first taste of his coffee and only then he realized he had an audience.

"Hello," he called, a bit sheepish while watching their amused faces – he just knew he was the cause of – when his mind registered there was someone new sitting at the kitchen counter.

"Hello, Doctor Banner," Harry called with a smile, "I'm pleased to finally meet you. Tony talks about you all the time. I'm Harry Potter."

"He does?" grasping the extended hand gingerly, Bruce observed the woman greeting him so normally. Rather petite, with a slender frame, messy black hair and luminous green eyes, she was striking while not being beautiful in the classical way. Still, she had this quality about her that made everyone want to take a second, closer look and Bruce almost felt under her spell, when he finally woke enough to realize something. "Funny, he never mentioned you before."

"Ah, that's because I'm Tony's little secret." She smiled even wider, Cheshire-like.

"And now you make me sound like I'm a pervert." Quipped Tony, from where he stood next to the cabinets.

"You mean to tell me, you're not?" Harry bantered back.

"Now wait just a minute. Who was the one who was ogling my chest before we even met?"

"Oh, so it's my fault you hanged me up directly facing your workbench? Or that you like prancing around half-naked?"

"Well in my defense I was in my private lab. How was I supposed to know you could talk?"

Ignoring the bickering pair, Steve moved closer to Bruce and asked in sotto-voce. "Do you…understand what they are saying?" he was afraid that all this talk was another future related reference that was flying him by.

"Not a clue," Bruce whispered back. "And I'm kind of afraid to ask," he continued and then wisely decided to focus on his drink.

"Oh," responded Steve and when it seemed the two of them was almost ready to fight for real, he cleared his voice.

Loudly.

Confronted with two pair of glaring eyes he put on his best fake smile and asked. "So, how did you two meet?"

Tony glanced at Harry, who shrugged. "Don't look at me to tell the story. I was still asleep for half of it."

"Alright," he conceded. "But let's move in the living room. It's kind of a long one and I want to sit down. And I'm only telling this once, so don't interrupt or ask questions until told to do so."

"Whatever you say, boss!" Harry was the first to jump off the chair and head to the living room, while Bruce and Steve followed more sedately.

For just one moment Tony debated the wisdom of his action - after all how Harry and him met was nobody's business. But with Harry sticking around for a longer time than usual, something he'd been clued into the moment he entered the kitchen and saw her there, serenely sipping coffee as if there was nowhere in the world she would rather be, he'd know the story would have to be told to his teammates someday.

At least, with him telling it, he could choose which private details could be left unspoken.

Setting himself comfortably on a sofa he'd long ago claimed as his own, not that it really deterred Thor from sitting on it when the Norse God was hanging around, he began his story to his attentive audience.

"It all began with Pepper hounding me to sign some papers…"

**Tbc.**

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**AN: What do you think? Please let me know in a review! "the still shameless author" :D**


	2. What's hanging up?

**AN: **Seriously guys, I was blown away by the sheer amount of faves and followers this story has gathered, and I want to take this opportunity to thank each and everyone of you for the reviews you gave me. For those using an account, you got to hear from me in person as for all of you who went anonymous here a big: **Thank you!**

On a slightly related topic, I did receive an anonymous review calling this story, or I'm pretty sure that person was referring to me as "Scanously shameless" - which I have no idea what it means. Heck, even Google doesn't - so what do you guys think? Compliment or flame? Because if that is a flame, well I can't consider myself warned/insulted/whatever, when I have no idea what they meant by it. So yeah, ignorance is bliss in this case. :D

Beta: **llLethell** - A big fat **THANK YOU** to you as well. ;) All remaining mistakes are my own since I always mess around a bit just before posting something.

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**What's hanging up?**

"Here…and here! See Pepper, all done. Aren't I good? Now if you'll excuse me, there's something that I need to be doing, not here." Tony put on his sunglasses and sauntered towards the door, while Pepper shuffled the papers behind him.

"Hold on," she called waving one he'd skipped. "There's still the matter of Obadiah Stane's will."

Tony stopped, almost outside the office. "I told you I didn't care…"

"Tony."

"…what happens to his stuff. Sell it… "

"Tony!"

"…on a dime, or better yet…"

"TONY!"

"…give it all away. What?" He had the gall to look affronted at her interruptions, while she took a deep calming breath and stated, "If you've really read the papers I gave you, then you'd know it's not about his material possessions. I'm talking about all the things that used to belong to your mother."

"What?" surprised, Tony stepped back into the office and let the door close behind him. Rarely something surprised him nowadays, yet Pepper's words had come like a punch in the gut. "What things?"

"Here," she said and handed him a folder with several small printed sheets of paper. "It's all in there, what he had in storage, after he cleaned up your parents' Manhattan home as the executor of their will."

"That son-of-a-bitch! He told me he kept nothing when I asked what he'd done with them." A fresh wave of bitterness crawled inside him, as Tony scanned the new evidence showing just how much his godfather had kept from him over the years. It made him wonder, if anything about the man had been real, and the thoughts just chipped away at his mind. Clutching the papers so hard he was wrinkling them, he forced himself to appear relaxed when he noticed just how worried Pepper was becoming. Pasting on a fake smile he snapped the folder shut and opening the door, motioned to his assistant. "Well, no time like the present. Let's see what this is all about."

xxx

The storage facility was airy and roomy, with row after row of neatly wrapped stuff placed carefully on metal shelves. Each package had a label and a description, and after glancing around at some of them, Tony's stomach began to unclench, with him thinking that maybe this wouldn't be too bad.

All that lasted for half a minute until his eyes were drawn to a somewhat familiar shape. A medium-sized box, placed under lock called to him inexorably, and when he eventually got to unwrap it, he barely restrained himself from hurling something at the wall.

The description on the label was fairly accurate and impersonal, but he would always recognize his mother's jewelry box. She had kept it on display on her dresser, and once, when he had been six, he had gone through it in a search for a diamond. He had needed the stone for a light refracting experiment and he had been in the process of trying to dismantle a large piece from a necklace when the maid had caught him at it. His mother had been wryly amused and she had sat with him for two hours after that and told him the story behind each piece of jewelry – a real punishment for the hyperactive child he had always been. Needless to say he had never again tried to use her jewelry in an experiment again.

Tony sighed and closed the box. As far as he could tell, the pieces were all in there, some family heirlooms and a lot of "forgive-me" gifts from his father, for forgotten family dinners and other occasions.

_Daddy dearest had a knack for that; _Tonyrecalled with a touch of longing and still a fair amount of bitterness.

After the box, identifying the personal stuff from those that didn't matter became easier. There on the third row, neatly wrapped was her favorite mink coat, still in mint condition and if he leaned too closely a hint of her favorite perfume could still be smelt.

Tony left that section rather quickly, his mind going over implications a mile a minute. All this stuff, his mother's personal things, painted a picture he didn't want to think of, especially when he remembered that Maria Stark had never been supposed to go on that fateful plane trip that took her life. It had been a spur-of-the-moment decision from his father to invite her as well, in an effort to salvage something from their estranged marriage.

Tony hid his face in his hands and took a step backwards, the urge to flee and never look back kicking in. _He was not a coward_, he told himself as his movement gained some speed, he just needed some distance to put it all into perspective. He had had enough of axis-tilting discoveries, thank-you very much, and he would have liked it for the fates to stop laughing at him.

Fate it seemed, had other plans in store, as he tripped on open air, and in an uncharacteristic display of clumsiness, he went down, the only thing breaking his fall being some wrapping he had managed to grip onto. A ripping sound accompanied his movement, followed by the staccato of clicking heels as Pepper rushed to him.

"Tony, are you alright?"

Hastily getting up, he tried to allay her fears. "Yeah. Don't worry, never better." He grimaced and looked around searching for the exit. "Pepper, why don't we…" but the suggestion he was trying to make got caught inside as he set his eyes on the painting his clumsiness had revealed.

"I know this one." Turning completely around, he ripped the remaining wrapping until the whole picture was revealed. Pepper peered curiously at him and at the painting, and then she quickly located the item on the list she was carrying and began to read the description out loud.

"Number 310881. 'The Witch', 19th century, artist unknown, although similar in style to Frank Xaver Winterhalter. It was a wedding gift to your mother from a good friend of hers, one Susan Pevensie, who…" and while Pepper continued with the list, Tony let the sound of her voice wash over him as he assessed all the details.

The painting was primarily dark, with a central figure incredibly life-like. Her long black hair, somewhat untidy, blended in with the background and the robe she was wearing, making her pale face almost luminous in contrast. The only splashes of color were the young woman's eyes, an entrancing shade of green – _bewitching eyes; _hethought and rather fitting giving the name of the piece - and a silver pendant resting on her chest. The pendant was a perfect triangle, containing a circle which was cut exactly in half by a diagonal. Tony's mind was already doing the calculations, before he stopped himself from going further. It was probably only the artist's signature and not likely to be of any importance.

All in all, the painting spoke to him in a way he had never felt art doing before, and almost against his will he caressed one of the strange symbols adorning the frame. A sharp tingle traveled through his arm, all the way to his arc-reactor and even as he quickly retracted his fingers, he could still feel a faint buzz in them.

Narrowing his eyes he looked at the picture once more, and then he announced to Pepper. "Have all this wrapped and delivered to my house; I'll sort it there. And, put this piece in my lab."

Pepper pursed her lips, and Tony knew there was an objection waiting to be voiced somewhere in there. He cocked his eyebrow as if to say _'What?'_

"Tony, not that I don't applaud your new appreciation for art, but explosions happen in your lab."

"And?"

"This is a masterpiece."

"So are my cars."

"Tony, you wrecked those cars." Pepper finished her argument, and Tony had to concede her point. Those early experiments with his armor had been murder on his car collection.

"Fine," he said and almost let it at that. "I'll ask J.A.R.V.I.S. to set in a security protocol."

Knowing that was the best she could get, Pepper send out an apologetic glance at the unfortunate painting, and changed the subject.

Hours after they were gone; the darkness inside it began to shift.

**Three weeks later -**

"J.A.R.V.I.S., " Tony gasped as he slowly changed one palladium core with another, arc-reactor in his hand and not in the chest where it should have been. "Set out simulations with all known elements. I have to find something to replace this with." Looking annoyed at the melted mess that had once powered the reactor, Tony chucked it in the disposal unit absentmindedly.

Using the palladium core was quickly turning out to have some rather unpleasant consequences, and as he wasn't too keen on dying, Tony figured he had to find a replacement, and fast.

Until then, the cores he had in the cigar box would do - he reasoned and then went on to work on some physical improvements on the Mark III armor. Sweating from the exertion, he took off his t-shirt and searched around for a replacement, remembering Pepper was due to come with some papers to sign any minute now.

On a second thought, maybe he should remain like this and then enjoy her flustered look. That certainly had potential, he considered, except J.A.R.V.I.S. had maxed the air conditioning because some not-insulated components were sensitive to heat.

Catching a cold was almost worth it, but with the added complications of the palladium, Tony decided to let it pass this time and to put on the Black Sabbath tee he had found lying around. It was then that he heard what he first thought it was an auditory hallucination.

"Don't do that. I was rather enjoying the view."

Tony froze, mid dressing. "J.A.R.V.I.S., did I drunk reprogram you again?"

"No, sir."

"Because that sounded like a woman's voice and except me, there's no one here."

"No sir, I can assure you it wasn't me. However, I'm picking up some readings coming from the lab's corner, five feet to your right." Tony whirled around following the AI's instructions, when the voice sounded again. "Oh, bloody marvelous. It figured that would be the first thing you'd hear."

It was then when he saw her waving sheepishly at him from the frame. Eyebrows climbing so high they practically disappeared under his fringe, Tony approached the painting he had taken out of storage three weeks ago, which apparently had become alive sometimes in between.

"J.A.R.V.I.S.," Tony called, eyes set on the impossibility of what he was seeing. "Either there are some consequences to palladium poisoning I didn't know about or there's a talking and moving painting on my lab." He got closer, curiosity getting the better of him.

"I couldn't pronounce myself on that matter, sir, however there's a bioelectrical signature in that corner that cannot be reasonably attributed to a normal painted image."

_Stranger things had happened, _he told himself and blinked several times, just in case this was an illusion brought up by too much coffee and not enough sleep. Except that it apparently wasn't, so he got in touching distance with it, mind going a mile a minute over possible explanations.

The young woman portrayed in it looked back at him, with curiosity and a touch of embarrassment. "Hullo?" she called when a full minute passed with him not saying a thing.

"Remarkable," Tony mussed, touching the picture "I can still feel the texture of the canvas, which means the paint-conductor layer is extremely thin. I didn't know anyone had the technology. My own company labs haven't developed it yet." Put out by the thought of being bested by someone when it came to technology, he grasped the frame and unhooked the painting from its place.

"Wait! What are you doing?" came the almost panicked enquiry from the image he was turning up-side down, and Tony answered distractively. "Looking for the power-source."

His frown deepened even further when all he saw on its back side was wood and fabric, with no technology in sight. Righting the picture he asked it accusingly, "How do you move?" and gave it a shake for emphasis.

"Magic." Came the terse reply, and judging by the way she was glaring at him, she was none too happy. "Now would you please put me down?"

"Right." Tony smirked and then placed the painting once again face down. Ignoring the muffled expletives coming from it, he called to his AI just as he was leaving his lab. "J.A.R.V.I.S. run a full-spectrum analysis on it. I want to know everything there is about."

"Certainly, sir."

Tony could feel the excitement that always accompanied a new project slowly building up. At least with this distraction he could forget about the palladium for a bit.

xxx

_"Wait, you mean to tell us you were a living portrait?" asked Bruce, not sure if he should believe this outlandish story or not. Then again, he regularly turned into a green giant when angry, so maybe he wasn't the most reliable of judges of what constituted as normal. _

"_Yeah, and I have __J.A.R.V.I.S.__' scans to prove it. There was nothing in them to prove she wasn't just a painting except for the bio electrical field she was giving out, which was just slightly higher than that of a regular human." Tony explained while searching his cup for any stray drops that might still be there. There were none._

_"I'm getting some more coffee. Anyone want some? If you do, you're on your own." And with that he left for the kitchen area. _

_Steve didn't say anything for the longest time, then eventually he broke the barrage of questions Bruce was bombarding Harry with. "What I would like to know is how you got that way." _

_"Come to think of it, I never got a detailed answer to that question either." Tony put in his two cents just as he was returning with a fresh, steaming mug of darkness. _

"_I wondered about that too," piped in Natasha just as she sauntered in the living room._

"_Romanoff", Harry greeted her coldly._

"_Potter", Natasha responded in kind and then her eyes lit up just as she spied the cup in Tony's hands. _

"_Get your own", he growled and cradled his treasure closer to his chest. _

_Natasha shrugged and then headed to the kitchen, while keeping an ear glued to the storytelling going on in the living room. She hadn't heard the first part from the beginning but she could always pry the details from the Captain. Director Fury would be pleased to finally get some answers on the unknown entity that was Harriet Potter. _

_In the living room, Harry kept silent for a moment as if gathering her thoughts. She was stumped from where to begin seeing that no story would be complete without some background on the world she had belonged to for awhile. She looked around the room: at the scientist that was burning with questions, the soldier that was looking at her earnestly and the one she called her closest friend in this world and chose to begin her story with one of the things they all understood, even the spy that was pretending not to listen in the kitchen. _

"_Here's a quick question for you all." she made sure she had all their attention, then, "What do you do with a weapon who's become obsolete?" asked Harry almost conversationally. _

_"You disassemble it or stow it securely away." answered Tony, voice devoid of any inflection._

_"Well, in that case I'm lucky my world chose the second option…"_

_**TBC**_

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_******P.S.** And the origin of the "Hang up" comment has been revealed. XD Is this what you __**were**_ expecting? To leave your comments/opinions, you know what to do. ;)


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